Thursday, September 25, 2014

That's What Friends Are For

I was in Seattle, enjoying a weekend of lectures and classes at Makers' Mercantile, when a long-time reader came forward with a magnificent gift.

She remembered that I am (in a very small way) a print collector, and gave me this.

It's called Die Spinnerin, engraved in the nineteenth century after a painting by the 17th-century Dutch artist Caspar Netscher. It made my dark little heart go thumpitta-thumpitta-thumpitta-boom.

The folio sheet (21 by 28) hasn't been cut. The tones and textures, which defy capture by my cut-rate phone camera, are pure velvet.

Then there's the subject matter, of course, with all the lovingly rendered details: the niddy-noddy, the hank of flax,

the little hand-cranked* (!) wheel. (Single drive? Curious. I would love to hear from anyone who might know whether this is accurate, or whether the artist goofed. All the rest is captured in such fine detail that it seems odd he would leave out an entire loop of the drive band, if it were actually there.)

This isn't the sort of thing you fold up and stuff in a suitcase, so I asked my good buddy Chuck at Skacel if he could please hand it over to their shipping department and have it sent home to me.

I got a message from Chuck a few days later saying that (as you might imagine would happen at a yarn company) the print had caused quite a stir and everybody had wanted to run away with it.

In due course, a sturdy tube arrived from Skacel. Inside was the sweet spinning lady, looking as beautiful as ever.

Thanks, Chuck! You're the best!

*Edited to add: Mind you, there is a footman, which suggests there is also a treadle hidden under the skirts. So, hand-cranked and foot-powered? The more I look at this the more fascinated I get.

62 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Just speculating here, because I haven't actually seen a hand-cranked wheel, but perhaps because it is hand-driven, there isn't a need for braking (as there is for a foot-treadled wheel where the drive wheel gathers momentum and needs to be stopped occasionally). If that is so, then there wouldn't be a need for the second drive band loop, since its function is to serve as a brake.

Again, just pulling this out of thin air, but it's the best I can think of.

Many of the antique wheels I've found are single drive bobbin led devices. I've especially noticed these in wheels attributed to German areas. They generally have a break band on the flyer. These are sometimes known as German, or Irish tension wheels. The lovely wheel in the is configured differently than any I've seen, but the artwork is probably accurate.

I don't think that this is hand cranked or driven, I'm thinking that that is a distaff with the flax arranged on it. The fiber seems to be going through an orifice to a rather small bobbin to the left of the whorl assembly there. That would explain the footman and unseen treadle.

There needs to be either a second loop around the wheel (one around the whorl and one around the bobbin) or there needs to be a brake band around the bobbin, otherwise the yarn will twist but never wind on.

I could see a use for a crank, on a hand made single treadle wheel like that it's sometimes hard to set the wheel in motion in the right direction just from the treadle, and you would end up giving it a push by hand, (although you can also just push the drive wheel to start it out).

Overall I'd say it's pretty accurate. I would be easy enough for an artist not to notice a brake band.

I agree with Knit Wit, the crank is prob'ly there to get the wheel started. To me it looks like it is clearly a staged pose with the woman ready to begin, notice the slack in the fiber leading into the orifice.

I wouldn't be overly concerned about the treadle, or lack of a visible treadle. Some treadles are merely lengths of wood as seen in the print, attached to the footman, and disappearing under her foot/skirt.

I would concur that the treadle is hidden by skirts, already being underfoot. And the crank is to get it started, I would think... with such a tiny drive wheel, spinning it to get it started would be more annoying and happen more often, so the crank would be handy-dandy.

I don't see a brake, but i'm guessing a little detail like that would be easier to miss than a whole loop of the drive band.

There is a groove drawn at the front of the bobbin for a brake band, so my guess is this would be a scotch tension wheel. However there also appears to be a groove at the back of the bobbin that isn't being used, so perhaps it's both double and single drive? That seems unlikely.

My guess is that the artist was working from sketches of a number of spinning ladies, and amalgamated them into a frankenwheel.

What a fabulous gift! I concur with KnitWit that the crank is likely for getting the wheel started up from a stop, as well as being a bit of a holdover from earlier days. The lack of a double driveband is, IMHO, artistic license. That is, indeed, a double-drive flyer and should have a doubled driveband, but to depict that would have been fussy and distracting from the rest of the lovely detail. So I think the artist opted for clarity over accuracy.

Is the handle there to perhaps get the wheel going before you start treadling? I was taught to always start the wheel with your hand by giving one of the spokes a push,and then treadle only after the wheel was in motion. I can't remember what the reason for doing it this way was, but I learned it from Judith MacKenzie, which is reason enough for me.

I love the idea of a crank to get started--how often have I hit the back of my fingers not getting them out from between the spokes quickly enough! I think the horizontal stick her foot is on IS the treadle. the footman is the vertical piece that attaches it to the wheel (I think).

I have a similar spinning wheel to this. It is an old type of wheel associated with Poland, Eastern Germany and the surrounding areas. I got mine from Poland.

The foot part (excuse me I have noooo idea what these are called in English - I'm from Sweden) is to keep the wheel running. The hand part is to fine tune the "angle" of the wheel to make the yarn more even, if this explanation makes sense. I mean, you don't wiggle the wheel back and forth but it kind of cinches a little something in the middle of the wheel to adjust it to one's needs. You don't always use the hand part - if you are satisfied with the yarn thickness or evenness you just let it be.

Hope this was helpful and maybe informative. I'm sorry I don't know all the correct English lingo for spinning.

There is another artist =- David Ryckaert III who has done a similiar picture -painting not print with a better view of the wheel- as your Swedish commentator has said- it looks like the treadle does the work of the drive band driving the flyer whilst the hand crank does the work of the brake band, or second turn of a double-drive band in order to check the bobbin enough that the yarn winds on. That's a really lovely print as well as interesting! Thank you for sharing

Not sure if you are alerted to comments on old posts, but you might be interested in this discussion on Ravelry about spinning wheels with treadles and hand cranks: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/antique-spinning-wheels/3144395/1-25#21

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